Board game with figurines



March 30, 1965 c. EHRET BOARD GAME WITH FIGURINES 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Aug. 17, 1962 March 30, 1965 c. EHRET BOARD GAME WITH FIGURINES 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Aug. 17, 1962 BOARD GAME WITH FIGURINES Filed Aug. 17, 1962 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 Fig. 7

MALE 19;\.'. (414 FEMALE 1 170 0 0 2 2 o c o o 3 0 I 0 o o n 3 L o 0 a o n n 0 0 K 5 n o u u o o a I u 5 6 c n u 0 u o 0 n a o u 6 7 u a o u o o u o o a o o u e 7 g 0 O 0 0 O 0 C 0 O O O 0 0 8 a I o I o a o a u o o 0 a n a o B nited States 3 Claims. or. 273-135 My invention has for its object a novel game, which includes a predetermined number of figurines in the shape of pieces of cabbage, of male and female rabbits and of fence sections, means for storing said figurines before they have been won by the players, a support for each player subdivided into a number of areas on which the player sets the figurines he has won, a pack of cards carrying each instruction as to the playing of the game at the moment of its removal off the pack, at least one die and lastly an arrangement for deciding as to the sex of the rabbit won by a player.

The accompanying drawing illustrates by way of example, a preferred embodiment of my invention. In said drawings:

FIG. 1 is a plan View of a table the platform of which is covered by the different parts forming the game,

FIGS. 2, 3, 4 and 5 are views on a larger scale of certain of said parts,

FIG. 6 is an elevational view of an arrangement used for deciding of the sex of the rabbit figurines,

FIG. 7 is a view of said arrangement along line VII VII of FIG. 6, and

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of a die.

The game illustrated in FIG. 1 includes a cloth 1 over which say six supports constituted by pieces of cardboard 2, are laid in front of the different players, and a box 3 which serves for storing the different parts of the game when the latter are put aside. The box encloses or holds the figurines 4, 5, 6 and 7 respectively in the shape of a piece of cabbage 4, of buck rabbits 5, of doe rabbits 6 and of elongated fence sections 7 the assembly of which is adapted to form an enclosure. The game includes furthermore a pack of cards, six pairs of disks 9a and 9b and a sloping surface 10 which serves for deciding of the sex of the rabbit figurines won by a player.

The central section of the sheet 1 carries an ornament 1a defining the location on which the pack of cards 8 is to be laid. Said cloth may be made of paper, plastic material or fabric.

The supports 2, which are square, are provided on their upper surface with a playing surface comprising a grid subdividing it, for instance, into 100 square areas all of the same size. The surface of each support is furthermore provided with holes 21 and 22, the holes 21 being located at the center of each respective area while the second series of holes 22 are located near the middle of the sides or grid line enclosing the respective areas. According to a modification which is not illustrated, the surface of the support may in contra'distinction be provided with a series of grooves extending along the lines defining the grid areas with another series of narrower grooves along the lines of another grid parallel with those of the first grid and subdividing each area or square into four equal smaller squares. These supports may be made of cardboard, of wood, of plastic material or of a metal, magnetizable or otherwise.

The figurines 4 to 7 which may be made of any suitable material are provided each at its lower end with one or more feet 40, 50, 60 or 70 the size of which corresponds to the size of the holes 21 and 22 formed in the supports 2, so that the figurines may be readily fitted in said holes and released with reference thereto.

When the supports 2 are made of a magnetizable material, the feet of the figurines are provided, in a modificari C@ tion which is not illustrated, with a shoe constituted by a small permanent magnet.

The figurines 4 to 7 are arranged inside the box 3 which will be termed the farm, in parallel rows, each row including figurines of the same type. The game may for instance include supports 2 subdivided into grid areas, 500 figurines of the cabbage type, 600 figurines of the rabbit type, respectively 300 bucks and 300 does, and of the fence sections 7. In order to distinguish the bucks from the does, the corresponding figurines are of different colors, for instance blue for the bucks and pink for the does.

The pack of cards 8 includes 24 cards each of which carries on one of its surfaces an inscription or instructions stating the operation or action the player who has turned the card up has to execute. The instructions may be either constituted by drawings or diagrams, or else by phrases such as for instance: the fox is eating the rabbits: return half of your rabbits to the farm; the significance of such instructions will be readily understood upon reading of the following disclosure.

The disks 9a and 9b forming each pair of disks may be made of any suitable sufficiently heavy material. Both sides of each disk 9a are identical with each other whereas only one side of each disk 9b is similar to the sides of the disks 9a. The surfaces which are similar are marked by a given sign, say the letter X, whereas the last surface which is different is marked by a sign different from the former, say the letter Y.

A chance device is provided for ascertaining the sex of the rabbits won by the players. The device comprises a sloping surface 10 formed on a plate 12 carried by uprights 11. On the sloping surface is drawn a system of spaced horizontal lines 13 which are designated by serial numbers increasing from the top of the slope downwardly, say from 1 to 10, as illustrated in FIG. 7. Slightly above each line, is inserted a horizontal row of pins 14 which are equidistant from each other and the number of which corresponds to twice the serial number of the corresponding line; for instance there are four pins for the line 2, six for the line 3 twenty for the line 10. The rows of pins 14 are arranged so as to form a triangular system extending over the surface of the plate 12, of which the lower edge is adjacent the line 10 which its upper section carries a pin 15 corresponding to an only theoretical line which would carry the serial number 0 and which is not illustrated. Between the different rows of pins 14 are arranged other rows of pins 16, the number of pins 16 in each row being equal to the average of the numbers of pins 14 forming the two adjacent rows. The pins 16 in the rows are adapted to carry a removable rule 17 the breadth of which is equal to the distance separating the pins 16 from the nearest row of pins 14 above the latter. The system of pins 14 and 16 forms a comparatively close system of stops the meshes of which system however are sufiiciently wide so as to allow a ball 18, laid between the pins 19 forming a guiding slope above the triangular pin arrangement, to roll over the sloping surface until it meets the ruler 17 and is held between two pins 14 0f the corresponding row lying immediately above the ruler 17 Although this has not been illustrated, the pins 14 in each horizontal row are numbered and carry numbers increasing for instance from the left hand side to the right hand side. Inscriptions such as buck" and doe are drawn over the surface of the plate 12, respectively to the left hand side and to the right hand side of the field of pins.

The game includes furthermore at least one conventional six-sided die 25, shown in FIG. 8.

The rules of the game are different according as to whether it is supposed to be played as a polygamic game or monogamic game or a parthenogenetic game.

(a) In the first, polygamic game, the number of players may vary between two at a minimum and six at a maximum, and one of the players is selected as being the farmer: in addition to his playing his own game, the farmer distributes to the other players, the figurines contained in his farm 3.

At the beginning of the game, each player throws the die 25 once so as to designate the player who is to begin. This being done, the turn of playing of the players is established automatically by a line progressing clockwise round the game.

Each time a player throws a die 25 and each time he produces a die number above 1, he asks for what he is entitled to remove from the farm, say three pairs of fence sections 7 or 30 pieces of cabbage if his die 25 shows a value 3 or else 6 pairs of sections or 60 pieces of cab bage if the die shows the value 6.

When the player having thrown the die 25 has obtained the value 1, he cannot take out anything of the larm and furthermore, he has to take one of the cards off the pack 8. As described heretofore the cards each have inscriptions which instruct the player to execute such or such an operation, for instance to return to the farm several of the cabbages or rabbits which have been won by him or else to remove a number of figurines out of the farm.

The pieces of cabbage won by a player are fitted at the center of the grid areas subdividing the cardboard support 2, at the rate of one per grid. The foot 4t) of the cabbage figurine being inserted in the corresponding port 21. Similarly, the fence sections which have been won are arranged round the pieces of cabbage 1 along lines of the grid in a manner'such as to enclose the largest number of pieces of cabbage possible within the enclosure thus constituted.

The player who possesses a sufliciently high number of pieces of cabbage may when he plays again, try to win rabbits. When a number obtained by the throwing of the die is above 1, the player takes out of the farm a corresponding number of rabbits for which he must however give in exchange an equivalent number of pieces of cabbage from his support 2, which he returns to the farm. Since the rabbits in the game are either bucks or does, the player should first proceed to decide of the sex of the rabbits won by tossing the disks 9a and 9b, one pair of disks being tossed for each rabbit won. If the disks fall back on the cloth and show both their sides marked X, the player has a right to take a doe, but if in contradistinction, one of the disks shows a mark X, and the other a mark Y, he can only take a buck.

When the players have won a certain number of does and at least one back, and also a sufiicient provision of cabbage, they may proceed at each of their playing turns with a breeding of rabbits as follows: When the die 25 thrown by a player shows a value above 1, the player may take out of the farm a number of rabbits equal to twice the number of female rabbits he has on his card in exchange of an equivalent number of pieces of cabbage which he takes off his piece of cardboard if he has them in his possession, or else he takes them off the cardboard support of the next player, provided the pieces of cabbage of the latter are not enclosed inside an enclosure formed by the fence sections 7. The sex of the rabbits won is obviously defined in the manner described heretofore by throwing as many times the disks 9a and 9b as there are rabbits to be taken.

The first player who has managed to fill his cardboard support with rabbits, 100 rabbits in the present case, has won.

When the number of rabbits won in this manner is comparatively high, the selection of their sex may be performed in a speedier manner than that described hereinabove by means of the device 12 of which the horizontal lines numbered from 1 to 10 correspond to the number of does which the player has in his possession while the numthe corresponding line 8, directly underneath the sixteeniv pins 14-.

The ball 18 is then allowed to run-down from the upper end of the slope towards the rule as already disclosed. The ball will then be held fast between two needles, say

between those carrying the numbers 10 and 11; the ten needles to the left hand side of the ball show that, of the sixteen rabbits borne by the eight does available for the player, ten are bucks and the six others are females.

(1)) Playing with monogamic rabbits, the rules of this modification distinguish fro-m those of the procedure disclosed heretofore solely through the fact that only couples of does and bucks may give birth to two rabbits at a time.

(c) Playing a parthenogenetic game. According to this modification, the does have no need of a buck when giving each birth to two rabbits.

In order to reduce the duration of the game, it is possible in accordance'with a modification, to give each player a couple of male and female rabbits at the very beginning of the game. This mannerof operating may serve indifferently for either of the polygamic, monogarnic or parthenogcnetic playing rules.

What I claim is:

1. In a game to be played by a plurality of players comprising, a support for each player having a playing surface subdivided into a number of areas, a plurality of figurines winnable individually by the players and repre-* sentative of vegetables and positionable in respective areas of said support surfaces, a plurality of figurines 1nd1v1d-= ually winnable by the players and each adapted to partially enclose one of said areas in which said figurines representative of vegetables are disposed, another plurality of playing figurines each having a configuration of a rabbit and winnable by the players individually and positionable in respective areas of said support surfaces, a chance device operable by the individual players for defining the sex of the individual figurines won by the players having the configuration of rabbits, a pack of playing cards each having instructions as to what action is to be taken by a player with respect to the figurines when taken from said pack by a player at predetermined times, and another means operable by the players for determining the number of figurines won by the players and for alternatively determining when individual cards from said pack are to be taken by individual players operating the last mentioned means.

2. In a game to be played by a plurality of players comprising, a support for each player having a playing surface subdivided into a number of areas, a plurality of figurines winnable individually by the players and representative of vegetables and positionable in respective areas of said support surfaces, a plurality of figurines individually winnable by the players and representative of sections of a fence and each adapted to partially enclose one of said areas in which said figurines representative of vegetables are disposed, another plurality of pla ing figurines each having :a configuration of a rabbit and winnable by the players individually and positionable in respective areas of said support surfaces, a chance device operable by the individual players for defining the sex of the individual figurines won by the players having the configuration of rabbits, a pack of playing cards each having instructions as to what action is to be taken by a player with respect to the figurines when taken from said pack by a player at predetermined times, and die means operable by the players for determining the number of figurines won by the players and for alternatively determining when individual cards from said pack are to be taken by individual players operating the last mentioned means.

3. In a game according to claim 2, in which said figurines each have a foot, and said support means having holes for receiving the feet of the individual figurines.

3,023,006 2/62 Kovacs 273136 References Cited by the Examiner 3,025,0 3 3 2 Magee 273 134 UNITED STATES PATENTS O G PAT 429,250 6/90 Sperl et a1 273-130 231 231 2/59 Austra1ia 7 8, 4 Pro es 27 1 5 430,925 3 33 Great i 1,947,772 2/34 Harris 273-138 2,807,470 9/57 Keuls 273-130 DELBERT B. LOWE, Primary Examiner. 

1. IN A GAME TO BE PLAYED BY PLURALITY OF PLAYERS COMPRISING, A SUPPORT FOR EACH PLAYER HAVING A PLAYING SURFACE SUBDIVIDED INTO A NUMBER OF AREAS, A PLURALITY OF FIGURINES WINNABLE INDIVIDUALLY BY THE PLAYERS AND REPRESENTATIVE OF VEGETABLES AND POSITIONABLE IN RESPECTIVE AREAS OF SAID SUPPORT SURFACES, A PLURALITY OF FIGURINES INDIVIDUALLY WINNABLE BY THE PLAYERS AND EACH ADAPTED TO PARTIALLY ENCLOSE ONE OF SAID AREAS IN WHICH SAID FIGURINES REPRESENTATIVE OF VEGETABLES ARE DISPOSED, ANOTHER PLURALITY OF PLAYING FIGURINES EACH HAVING A CONFIGURATION OF A RABBIT AND WINNABLE BY THE PLAYERS INDIVIDUALLY AND POSITIONABLE IN REPECTIVE AREAS OF SAID SUPPORT SURFACES, A CHANGE DEVICE OPERABLE BY THE INDIVIDUAL PLAYERS FOR DEFINING THE SEX OF THE INDIVIDUAL FIGURINES WON BY THE PLAYERS HAVING THE 